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The ECHR recognized that the actions of the Ukrainian authorities to study the phone data of the editor-in-chief of the program “Schema” Natalya Sedletskaya carried the threat of revealing journalistic sources and, therefore, violated the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights. .
Natalya Sedletskaya, editor-in-chief of the “Schemes: Corruption in Detail” program, won on April 1 at the European Court of Human Rights in the event that investigators from the Attorney General’s Office accessed data from her phone. This was reported by one of the program’s founders, Radio Liberty.
The ECHR recognized that the actions of the Ukrainian authorities entailed the threat of revealing journalistic sources and, therefore, violated article 10 of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights (freedom of expression).
“The reasons given by the national courts for the interference in the plaintiff’s rights were insufficient to show that the interference was proportionate and consistent with the pressing need of society. The risk of damage to the interests protected by Article 10 was greater as the applicant’s job as a journalist was to investigate corruption, including corruption within the GPU itself, “the court ruling reads.
The decision in favor of Siedlecka was made by the ECHR judge unanimously.
They also ruled that Ukraine, as the defendant country, should reimburse it € 2,350 in court and legal costs and pay € 4,500 in moral compensation.
Sedletskaya noted that this case created a new precedent: at the beginning of the trial, the court prohibited the Ukrainian authorities from accessing his phone data, which was the first application of the so-called Rule 39 in cases related to the threat of source disclosure. journalistic. Rule 39 of the ECHR regulation (imposition of urgent measures) applies only when there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm.
In 2018 Kiev Pechersk District Court granted GPU access to the data from Sedletskaya phones and NV magazine correspondent Kristina Berdinskikh as part of the investigation against the director of the National Anti-Corruption Office Artem Sytnik. By court decision, the investigators obtained the right to study the calls, SMS correspondence and whereabouts for a year and a half.
The journalists appealed the court decision on access to data on their phones. September 18 appeals the court found excessive information requested by the prosecution from the Sedletskaya phone.
On the same day, he said that the ECHR ordered the Ukrainian authorities to refrain from accessing his phone data. The GPU, in accordance with the court’s decision, suspended the receipt of data from the journalists’ phones.
Attorney General Yuriy Lutsenko said the journalists’ need for access to phones was due to their refusal to provide information on the case of the possible disclosure of state secrets and data from the pre-trial investigation by the NABU director. Artem Sytnik.
According to the investigation, Sytnyk’s conversation with several Ukrainian journalists unofficially took place in Kiev in May 2017. The director of NABU stated that he did not divulge any state secrets or secrets of the investigation.
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